harry potter's author, j.k. rowling is poised to release her first novel written for adults. >> tell me where we are. magnificently beautiful. >> reporter: the casual vacancy is different from "harry potter" as you can imagine. the setting is an english town. >> it's not based where we are. it's very english and we're in scotland. i expect we're in that kind of rural prettiness. but it's anything but pretty between the haves and have nots. we've come to edinboro, scotland to talk about her new novel. the book deal was prostitution and heroin addiction. >> there's adolescent sex, there's cutting. there's death. >> yep. >> but it's a comedy. >> there are all those things. when i read the brurb that it was a black comedy. i thought maybe it's comic tragedy. there's rumor in the book, at times real humor but not primarily a comedy. >> reporter: the book is so top secret the publisher guarded it like the sorcerer's stone. >> this is so rare, i read the manuscript pages in your publisher's office. >> sorry about that.